


Destereotyping Fei - Toward Being Better Than Canon

by AlterImpulse



Category: Xenogears
Genre: But if you are writing Fei you need to know it, Canon really fumbled this, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Depersonalization, Dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Essays, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Meta, Not Own Voices, Past Child Abuse, READ BEFORE YOU WRITE FEI PLEASE, Research, Stereotypes, Trauma, Updating 20 year old bad information, Writing Fei Better, fandom essays, finally updated this brainfart from tumblr into an actual essay, this deals with some heavy stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 07:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19290640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterImpulse/pseuds/AlterImpulse
Summary: A research essay and overview on how we can write the Fei system in a way that matches actual narratives and actual psychological understanding of DID, while also keeping them in character, and giving them more character depth in a Watsonian perspective. An update of a tumblr meta post from last year. Fixed typo in relationships section.





	Destereotyping Fei - Toward Being Better Than Canon

**Author's Note:**

> 1) As far as I know, I am not technically own voices. I am not diagnosed with DID or OSDD and do not remember personal trauma beyond emotional abuse. I do, however, have generalized anxiety disorder, and have experienced dissociation and depersonalization as a result of that. Someone I know may also have taken DXM a few times long before I got into Xenogears fandom. This essay is based on the latest research as of the year 2019 and having paid attention to own voices from the community (who I will not mention unless they choose to be credited).
> 
> 2) This essay is mostly concerned with the Watsonian perspective as that is what is of value to fanfiction writers in this fandom, and also provides the best route to fix the portrayal if there ever is a remake, novelization, screenplay, or the like. I am very well aware of the Doylist perspective being likely WHY the portrayal is so bad in canon (lack of knowledge in Japan in the 1990s, reliance on other media that used Stereotypical DID as a trope, and the like), but the only thing that provides is justified anger, not an actual solution. The Watsonian perspective I choose to use here allows for a constructive, in-character, in-universe reimagining of the Fei system and the individuals in it.
> 
> 3) This document may be incomplete or updated! It is a living work, and I am open to all input in the comments and will work with that. Comments are open to singlets and plural systems, but I would ask that singlets not talk over plural systems who have chosen to engage with content that is likely severely angering and upsetting to them in its original form, and I would also ask that everyone assume good faith, and that no one troll, abuse, or start Discourse in the comments. Abusive commentary aimed at anyone will be reported and removed, and I am very willing to turn off anon comments if problems arise from anons.

01: Is Fei/Id/The Coward/etcetera #ActuallyDID?

YES. Unequivocally yes. The Fei system _does_ legitimately qualify for an actual DID diagnosis. That, itself, is _not_ the problem with how he is written or depicted - in canon, Fei suffered extreme child abuse (medical and psychic powers experimentation at the very least, and some dialogue lines and the DID itself suggest possible sexual abuse or rape from his mother while she was under Myyah's possession), starting at the age of four and ending with his accidentally (or possibly intentionally, as his alters are unreliable narrators) committing matricide at roughly six-eight. This level of trauma and the timing of it _definitely_ qualifies as to what would trigger _actual_ dissociative identity disorder, so that part actually is handled and written correctly to a degree, even if not thoroughly explained. 

02: So what's the problem?

 _Everything else._   Canon mixes up DID with schizophrenia (including Citan's infamous line about "talk a real schizophrenic") and bipolar (also Citan, this is why you do not send an engineer to do a psychologist's job!) Canon, too often, for both the game and Perfect Works, takes a view that Id is a villain and runs with it - he is murderous, violent, and a one-dimensional personality that only exists to cause harm, to kill, to get revenge or to step in to handle feelings of violent rage for Fei, and that his _eradication_ over Fei's "base personality" out of fear of his "overtaking completely" are somehow the valid goals in a setting where he has no access to actual therapy. The fusion scene plays off what seems for everything like a trauma-induced shock reaction (which would actually parallel the reason Id disappeared to begin with in canon) as a final healing and fusion that will hold together without any help except the love of Elly. Id's speaking for himself and advocating for them in that scene is written off by the narrative as just the ramblings of a madman.

In short, Xenogears uses the reveal of Fei as a DID system as a shocking plot point, furthers the view that DID persecutors and protectors are the same and are violent and murderous, and offers the love of a good woman and fusion via self-will, self-blame, and acceptance of a father's neglectful, cruel behavior as a cure for DID.

THIS. IS. A. PROBLEM. And one that, if you choose to write Fei-centric fic, you need to think about. You need to think about this whomever you ship Fei with as well: whether it's Elly, Citan, Bart, Billy, Ramsus, Chu-Chu, whomever - these issues are there. And you have two options, effectively.

Option one is to just accept the canon as it is, tag and warn for it, and run with it. This is an option many people have used, and it is even okay to use at some points - if, for example, you are writing a short story that has nothing related to this coming up in it - for example, if you're just writing PWP of Fei and whomever he's doing it with, a fic where he shows up as a side character, etcetera. Of course you don't have to deep dive Fei's psyche if that's not the point/he's not a major character in your story! You aren't Citan, you don't need to infodump. ;) Unless, of course, you wish to do so!

Option two is where it gets interesting, and that is what this essay is about, and the resources at the end I have provided for learning more about actual DID/OSDD will help you there as well! 

03: So what does that second option consist of?

A more whole view of Fei and his system and the alters present (and the reincarnations, if you see them as alters, which I do because they act as such would), giving each depth and personality beyond binary good/bad. A Watsonian take on the world in which Xenogears canon is set, that psychology and psychological understanding have vanished to some degree/become seen as things to be medicated away alone, from canon itself. That the final fusion was, indeed, another shock reaction from which Fei and his system will need to recover, whomever they are with as partners/friends/lovers/etcetera. This is basically what I shall elaborate on in the next points.

04: What's a Watsonian take?

To simplify, the term comes from metacommentary on Sherlock Holmes works (which is actually interesting, as Xenogears would be, in some ways, a Sherlock Holmes tale set IN SPACE were it narrated from Citan's POV) - Doylist refers to theories based on the writers (e.g. the reason Watson's leg wound moved places being Arthur Conan Doyle forgot where it was) while Watsonian refers to in-universe plothole patching (e.g. "the wound itself didn't move places but the pain from it did," "there is more than one wound," "the wound healed and is conversion disorder," whatever).

Some potential Watsonian takes on why there is no valid mental health care in the setting of Xenogears beyond psychobabble, Solarian mental stabilizers that apparently do no good for Kahran Ramsus, and serotonin regulating nanomachines? I'm sure you can come up with some of your own (be creative!) but here's a few I personally think would work and I use as the background in my own fics  
  
a) Psychology was forgotten, entirely, either due to all of the apocalypses the planet had been through placing the planet in permanent survival mode (especially after the fall of Zeboim, which seemed to be the last civilization that truly approached a high Kardashev level), or on purpose due to the machinations of Solaris/the Gazel/Miang|Myyah (after all, a populace is easier to use the Dirty Psychological Tricks like gaslighting and grooming on if they don't even know it when it's happening!)

b) Psychology outmoded itself, becoming entirely biological (e.g. meds for everything) except when a lot of that biomedical knowledge got lost except for the basics of regulating serotonin and dopamine except within the laboratories of Solaris (and even there, in large part, why Citan thinks he knows more than he does, in a prime example of how the Dunning-Kreuger effect can even happen to smart people!)

There's probably plenty of others, but those are two workable ones I use. Basically, a Watsonian take would assume at base level that somehow, for some reason, the levels of psychological and psychiatric knowledge on the unnamed planet of Xenogears (which I call Archer M24 from its location, but that's another essay entirely...) tanked at some point and barely hover around those of the 1970s-1980s at best, but with added cannibalized people and nanomachines.

Therefore, there is _no_ _valid actual therapy or treatment_ for DID within the setting of Xenogears, unless it is discovered by the characters in your story to some degree or they arrive on another planet within the universe that does have a higher Kardashev level of civilization and more psych knowledge (and it's best to not break suspension of disbelief by having them discover it _all at once_ , then you're presented with a situation akin to the final fusion of canon - an unbelievable stereotype that _also_ overlooks that _healing takes time_ , more than one or two years diagnosed!)

As a result of this lack of therapy or treatment, the Fei system is pretty much on its own - which makes its unhealthy coping mechanisms **a little bit more contextualized**. We're not fully there yet to a less harmfully stereotyped portrayal (because DID/OSDD systems in real life are almost always _not violent to anyone but themselves_ if that _even without any therapy or treatment_ ) That said, what this Watsonian take is best for is working with how he perceives and blames himself, and that the best that _can_ be done is what Citan and Yui are trying to do at the beginning (stabilizing him and giving his less “I’M GONNA KILL YOU ALL” personality strength and peace to grow and become not a blank slate, while developing legitimate outlets such as art and training for the things that could cause a switch) although Citan is ableist and doesn’t know actual psychology (as evidenced when he _conflated it with schizophrenia_ in the dialogue) and thinks Id is a problem. He's trying, but he's in effect trying to assemble something blindfolded in the dark.

That said, if you’re writing Citan or Sigurd (or another character who would have knowledge) interacting with him this provides something to explore - that both are ableist, but what leads them to their views, in this world of no therapists? Their Solarian experience basically infusing their minds with Naziesque ableism, or their personal emotions of fear of being killed or of someone/something they are protecting being killed clouding their ability to see Id as anything but a danger and a problem as opposed to a hurting victim that can’t help re-inflicting his traumas? If so, that actually brings up a very interesting conflict to work with in a World of No Therapists - where does someone’s ability to express rage need to be checked? Is genocide in vengeance FOR genocide or to stop genocide allowed? Those are some issues you can’t just dance right on by like the canon did, Id’s feelings are/were just as valid as everyone’s in his path’s rights to life.

05: A more full, whole view of Fei's system:

Fei's extremely atypical presentation of "DID" is a result of his nature as a shapeshifter, the intensity of his abuse, and the above noted concept that the world does not have legitimate therapy and help, and does have people who indulge and push his alters’ worst instincts, so all of that made his situation much worse. It is very important to keep this in mind, and at the forefront of your readers' minds, to avoid hurting real life people who suffer from dissociative disorders. That Fei as a character is ONE experience of a dissociative disorder under extreme conditions, with no therapy, and with lots of people around who want to encourage their worst instincts and most troubling behavior, from _no therapists_ to the _anti-therapy_  exposure to people such as Grahf and Krelian are.

 **Id and The Coward (and the reincarnations) are all separate, individual people, just as much as Fei is.**  In DID, **all of the alters are legitimate and real individuals/parts of the whole who are themselves individually, no matter how problematic or troubling their behavior may be (and again, in real life, it is almost never at the level of actual violent physical harm to others).** Some have their own illnesses (e.g. I write Id as having major impulse control issues and intermittent explosive disorder at least, and I could see him having other impulse issues like addiction to alcohol or drugs, so pretty sure there’s at least one time to be explored where poor Fei awakened with the booze hangover and Drive withdrawal from hell, but didn’t remember a bit of how he got there…), but they aren’t “just problems,” and how the canon handled that with Id SUCKS. Even if you're going with "Id is a 'genocidal fucked up thing,'" he needs to be humanized in writing to some extent and those reasons for WHY he chose to follow a path of violence and mass murder and expressing his rage via killing need to be explored.

Now, we're finally getting somewhere with it. At this point, if you're writing **with the information in the links I have added at the end** for further reference ( **WHICH I STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU READ AS THIS ESSAY IS JUST AN OVERVIEW, YOU NEED TO READ THOSE LINKS TO RESEARCH YOURSELF**!), you're already doing better than canon did because you know where the reality of DID for most people with it diverges from Fei's experience. You know how it develops, and you know where canon already made some major errors with it, which are now well within your knowledge to fix. If you're incorporating this information into your writing, you've successfully established that while _Fei_ is still stereotypical to a degree (because Id being a murderer is still a stereotype!), that stereotype _is not everyone,_ and therefore made your portrayal of him a deeper characterization than just the stereotype.

(For example, I as the writer am gay so I can speak on this - having a Camp Gay character isn't bad at all, IF you've done it on purpose, you've researched camp, it still fits your character, and you've contextualized to make sure that you aren't accidentally saying "all gay people act like this," but "this one gay man does, for his own reasons." Having your gay character as Camp Gay because you think all gay people are like that - or you're using the story to tell people all gay people are camp - that's the problem! And the problem with Fei's DID portrayal originally was that it made him look like his DID made him a killer, when DID does not do that. Once you've changed things to make it clear in your story that it wasn't DID that made Id a killer, but environment and personality and other factors, you've fixed the major problem)

06: DID has no cure, and that scene where Fei allegedly fused was a shock reaction

This can actually be argued from both canon in Perfect Works (the reference to Khan "sealing Id up" when he brought Fei to Lahan) AND from how fusion and integration are not the same and are a long-term process per the document in my end-notes. A sudden, overwhelming flooding of memories as the Fei system had at the cave is not any definition of healthy therapy any more than Citan's triggering Id in Etrenank was (both aren't good!) and it's more likely than not that once the pressure of the final fights, of saving Elly, of the end of the world begins to ease off, Id would most likely return, as would all of the other alters, even possibly with more spawned. 

Love can help (and is the best everyone has to work with in the given situation) but it can’t cure trauma, because there is no cure for experiences and memories such as those carried by Fei and Id and the Coward and the alters/incarnations. Any character who tries to pull what Elly did when she reached out to Id in canon is likely putting themselves at major risk of death and making Fei 100 times _worse_ when he comes back to see the results of requiring him to "be in control" and "take control" rather than accepting that Id just is, that he is his own independent self, and setting some degree of boundaries for interacting with him (to be brutally honest, for almost any character other than Citan or Midori, that would probably require understanding when he is going to switch to Id and getting the hell out of there) while respecting his presence and self.

Ideally, the best scenario for Fei/Id/The Coward/his reincarnations is probably co-consciousness - knowing they all exist and learning to share their forms, and slowly beginning to open up about trauma with someone they can trust. If that (and the others’ love and concern for him for the most part) resumes post-ending and expands to the other alters, there’s a chance he would recover from the shock reaction mistaken for fusion. A small chance but a chance, and if you want to write “happy ending for Xenogears somehow,” or at least "Id doesn't nuke the entire planet and call it a day," and it involves Fei, this is where you want to start from - that whomever is still alive, whether it’s Elly or Citan or Bart or Billy or whomever - _gets_ that he’s still fragile, **that he’s not “fixed” and never will be and it’s not about “fixing” but about “stability,”** and about planning for **how to help Id himself learn to control his impulses, and feel at peace enough to begin to talk in ways other than his primary language of “kill.”**

**Author's Note:**

> Simple explanations of DID/OSDD in infographics, courtesy of clever-and-unique-name: https://imgur.com/a/cumnagV
> 
> Verified resources on DID/OSDD:
> 
> https://themighty.com/2017/10/how-to-help-dissociative-episode/
> 
> https://themighty.com/2016/10/what-dissociation-feels-like/
> 
> https://themighty.com/2016/06/self-care-tips-for-dissociation/
> 
> https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/dissociative-disorders
> 
> https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dissociative-disorders/symptoms-causes/syc-20355215
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/Coping-Trauma-Related-Dissociation-Interpersonal-Neurobiology/dp/039370646X I don't think there's a free version anywhere, but this book is highly recommended for actual patients, and if I write a longform post-ending fic that isn't just a one-shot I may see if I can get a copy to inform my writing.
> 
> Other info:  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale (Since I mentioned it. The humanity pre the planet crash was III to IV. Zeboim was probably a 1. Solaris/Etrenank and Shevat are a 1 but juuust barely, and Kislev would be half of a 1. The rest of the planet is... below that by the point the game is set?)


End file.
